According to the report, carbon emissions from energy use rebounded by 5.9% across G20 nations last year and surpassed pre-pandemic levels, causing huge income losses in services, manufacturing, agriculture and construction sectors.
The CT – an international partnership of organisations that provide an annual stocktake of G20 climate action – noted that the G20 countries’ support to produce fossil fuels reached new heights at $64 billion in 2021 even before the energy crisis brought about by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Flagging how G20 members collectively undermine climate efforts, the report said these nations recorded high emissions in the energy sector despite warnings from the IPCC that the countries must halve emissions by 2030 to keep the 1.5 degree C warming limit enshrined in the Paris Agreement alive.
G20 member countries include big and emerging economies such as the USA, China, Japan , Germany, India, UK, Russia, Canada, Australia, Italy, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa, Indonesia and Turkey among others. Though all the G20 nations except Mexico announced their respective ‘net zero’ emission targets, the report suggested that these countries still need to ramp up their targets and implementation to keep the 1.5 degree C of warming limit within reach.
Noting that the impacts of climate change will become more severe with increasing temperatures, it said 10% of the current population in India and Brazil will likely be affected by heatwaves in coming years as the average global temperature last year already reached about 1.1 degree C above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900). At a projected 3 degree C of warming scenario under inadequate mitigation targets, this will likely increase to over 20% in Brazil and almost 30% in India.
The report shows that the extreme events such as cyclones, flash floods, floods, and landslides caused damage to crops in over 36 million hectares resulting in loss of $3.75 billion for farmers in India between 2016–2021.
“Extreme weather events in our regions have shown that the effects of climate change are increasing, and more and more people are being affected. The need to transform our energy systems is obvious, which will also require the support of rich countries whose per capita emissions are much higher than India’s,” said Suruchi Bhadwal from The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
India’s per capita emissions are, in fact, approximately 30% of the G20 average. Though the country’s total per capita emissions have increased by 12% from 2014 to 2019, it continues to be quite low at 2.2 tCO2e compared to 7.5 tCO2e of the G20 average.
